video games & geek culture

10 Retro Gaming Gems We Want To See Ported To Nintendo Switch In 2019

The Nintendo Switch library is awash with incredible titles, but there’s always room for more. As Christmas approaches, we’ve decided to put together our wish list and send it to Santa himself in the hopes that he’ll be able to port all of our favourite retro titles to the Switch in time for 2019.

DIZZY PRINCE OF THE YOLKFOLK

The Dizzy games were a staple of the Amstrad and Spectrum catalogues back in the 1990s and would make for an egg-cellent addition to the Nintendo Switch library.

Based on the adventures of a plucky heroic egg named Dizzy, the games featured some hard boiled side-scrolling adventures as well as puzzles that would leave your brain feeling more than a little scrambled.

The Dizzy property seems to be a favourite of the homebrew market these days, so Nintendo should really capitalise on his the characters renewed popularity and bring him home to the Switch.

DR. MARIO

We all know how good a game Tetris was/is, but who here remembers playing Nintendo’s Dr. Mario, a fun, plumber-centric clone of Alexey Pajitnov’s classic puzzler?

Dr. Mario was every bit as addictive as Tetris, pitting the titular quack against an ever increasing number of biological enemies that will presumably kill you dead if you don’t take your medicine. It would go on to make numerous “Best Nintendo Game Ever” lists and would be ported onto just about every Nintendo console since its release back in 1990 – so adapting it for the Switch seems like the most logical next step.

THEME PARK

If going out experiencing rollercoasters first hand wasn’t your thing back in the 1990s then you could stay home instead and build your very own theme park – complete with vomit-inducing loop-the-loops, courtesy of the once mighty Bullfrog Productions and its must-have construction sim.

If this is a success then equally fun Theme Hospital would surely follow.

LEMMINGS

If you use your Switch as a means to kill time, either on the drive home (assuming you’re not in charge of a vehicle), or while taking a dump, then it’s always nice to have a mindless game to play that you can pick up and put down at a moments notice. Lemmings is just such a game.

What better way to kill 10 minutes between meetings than by leading a bunch of cute animals to their grizzly deaths time and time again? Lemmings was a classic when it landed on the Amiga in 1991, and we’re sure it’d be a hit again if ported to the Switch.

LEGEND

Back in 1994, Sony teamed up with Seika Corp to create this often overlooked sword and sorcery themed beat-em-up that is just crying out for an HD makeover. Typically, when you think of this genre of game you’d be forgiven for saying Final Fight or Golden Axe, but in many ways Legend was superior and a lot more fun, and would be the less obvious choice to port for Switch in 2019.

SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD

If you were one of the lucky few who managed to download the Scott Pilgrim vs the World video game then you’ll understand just why it would be so cool to see it ported to the Switch very soon.

Based on the hugely successful comic book series by Bryan Lee O’Malley, the Scott Pilgrim game was a side-scrolling beat-em-up that harkened back to the arcade classics of Konami. It was released in 2010, so it’s not technically a retro title, however, it gets the nod for this list because it’s so rooted in the games of yesteryear.

BART VS THE SPACE MUTANTS

There’s no denying that Bart vs the Space Mutants was a highly flawed (and insanely difficult) game back in the day, but it remains an all-time favourite whenever you ask people about their favourite Simpsons video game memories. With a sexy HD makeover and an overhaul of the many, many glitches, it could find a new lease of life on the Switch.

COMMAND & CONQUER

If you’re anything like us then you probably spent much of the late 90s commanding your armies in this incredible, genre-defining real-time strategy title.

Command & Conquer is the perfect way to kill time at home, and will also give you all the skills you’ll need for the inevitable fallout from the breakdown of society following Brexit. Win-win!

STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC

Say what you will about the Star Wars video game universe, but there simply hasn’t been a better series of video game spin-offs than the incredible Knights of the Old Republic titles.

You can currently revisit the games of the Xbox, courtesy of the backward compatibility function, but why not go one step further and give it a complete makeover? There’s always a market for anything Star Wars, and if people are willing to part with their hard earned money for tosh like Battlefront, then Knights of the Old Republic will sell by the boatload.

FALLOUT

Fallout 76 is probably one of the most controversial big-ticket releases of the last decade, but this doesn’t take away anything from the other games in the series, which have been entertaining the post-apocalyptic masses since 1997.

The original Fallout was one of the very best turn-based RPG’s ever made, and although it looks somewhat primitive by today’s standards, it has an unwavering fan base that returns to the Vault 13 even today, and we’ve no doubt it would be a money spinner if it ever found it’s way out of the wastelands and onto the Switch.

Which classic video game/s would you like to see ported to the Switch in the coming year? Sound off in the comments below, and don’t forget to let us know over on our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages, using the tag #tbgswitch